


Long Way Home

by ambiguously



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:00:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26954002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ambiguously/pseuds/ambiguously
Summary: Depa survives Order 66. So do the people she loves.
Relationships: Depa Billaba & Kanan Jarrus, Depa Billaba & Mace Windu, Depa Billaba & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 20
Kudos: 107
Collections: Fic In A Box





	Long Way Home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skatzaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/gifts).



She ought to be dead, and if she doesn't get herself out of this clearing before the clones return, she will be. Somewhere not far away, they're hunting Caleb. From the aggrieved sounds they make, they haven't found him yet.

She's bleeding in too many places, and the blaster burns hurt more than the wounds she sustained from Grievous. Grievous was her sworn enemy, not someone sworn to be her ally, or worse, someone she considered a friend. The betrayal cuts into her far deeper than the injuries. They fought together, bled together, and all of that has been cast away into nothing, ablated into oblivion by blaster fire.

Her mind is swimming. She'll never make it away in time.

Mace's voice upbraids her in her memory. A Jedi does not surrender, not until her last breath. That may be soon, she thinks back at him, but she forces herself to rise, looking away from the blood she's left on the ground. She staggers away, almost tripping on a wondrous find. A creature died here, its bones gnawed by another then abandoned.

The clones will be back soon, but perhaps not tonight. They left her for dead. They'll return to finish the job. Their instructors taught them that and she reinforced the lesson time and again.

She gathers a few of the larger bones, and smears them against her wounds, and drops them in the clearing where her men shot her. If they take their time before they come back to collect her body, it might be enough to fool them. It might not. She has no other hopes, and she limps away as fast as she can, offering a prayer to the Force to protect her padawan. She cannot protect him now.

When she is far from the voices, far from the clearing, far like she has traveled across five star systems on foot, Depa collapses, not knowing if she'll ever rise again. She crawls the rest of the way into a thick pile of old leaves, decaying here in this lonely space. She rips pieces of her robe to form bandages and falls asleep before she can bind all her wounds.

* * *

Dawn on Kaller is chilly and full of pain. Depa would give anything for another long dip in a bacta tank. She moves to a sitting position, cataloging new aches. The blasters should have killed her. The men seemed bent on her death, like a switch had been flicked inside them. Perhaps the switch had stuck enough to keep them from flipping their blasters to a lethal setting.

She doesn't know where Caleb is.

She closes her eyes, reaching for calm. The Force will do as it wills. She felt the deaths of so many friends all at once, and that had saved them from the initial attack. Even now she senses the emptiness of lives that should have been part of the background of her own thoughts. Only sparks remain. Somewhere beyond the stars, Mace is alive and in as much pain as she. Somewhere closer, the bright glimmer she associates with Caleb's mind burns with a steady light. This is hardly a wayfinder. She could stand next to either and not know where he is. But her padawan lives, and her master lives.

It's a terrible paucity of Jedi, but it's a start.

* * *

Caleb leaves Kaller before she can find him. At times, she catches glimpses of him inside the Force when he's happy, or when he's scared. The latter happens more often, and it grieves her not to offer him comfort. She envies the Jedi who learned the means of speaking mind to mind, but she doesn't have much room for that envy. Those with that gift have all passed into the Force, and she is still alive.

Depa cuts her hair, not allowing herself to weep for the loss of her braids. The marks of illumination can't be removed without scarring her, but the Greater Mark can be covered by a scarf. A few credits into the right hands, and she can have a piercing on the side of her nose to match the Lesser Mark. Long gone are her Jedi robes, replaced by hard-wearing trader's garb. She looks little like a Jedi Master or a Chalactan Adept and very much like any other woman with a desire to copy fashion trends from the Core.

The first miracle occurs five years after the worst day of her life. 

Mace recognizes her instantly despite her meager disguise. She know him as well, marking with sorrow the scars on his face, and the poor prosthetic where his sword hand once was. This dusty, crowded marketplace is far from Kaller, far from Coruscant, and far from anywhere they traveled together. It's the perfect place to meet again, even if neither knew it until this moment.

She doesn't shout his name, only moves through the crowd towards him. Mace does the same until they have reached a small empty pocket of space built for just the two of them.

"I knew you were alive," she says, and nothing else before she throws her arms around him like she did when she was a little girl and her master was the greatest, wisest Jedi in the galaxy.

He embraces her and doesn't speak for a long, long time.

Mace never describes the horrors he faced on Coruscant in the days immediately following the betrayal, or how he lost his hand. He wants to spare her. In turn, she hides the worst of the past few years away, locking it inside her heart. Neither needs to lay their burdens on the other now. They have no one else to protect, and so protect each other as fiercely as they did when she was a child.

"I don't know where Caleb has gone. I sense him from time to time."

He nods, accepting this. "The Force is keeping him safe. Perhaps it will lead us to him, as it led us to each other."

Depa remembers Mace's sublime faith in the Force guiding their way as he taught her. She wants to believe. The Force has been her only companion these past few years, but it is a chilly friend.

She has her best friend at her side now. The Force will be with them.

* * *

Their old patterns have long ago dropped into the dust behind them. Depa has been his equal on the Council for years. Now they are partners, in step and in sync with each other beyond the need for words. Others assume Mace is her husband, her brother, even her father, but he remains her closest friend as he has been since she can remember.

They travel together as teachers, and act as hired guns when the need arises, trading their well-honed skills in exchange for food and a place to sleep. They step in when a family or a village needs a hand, either to dig a new well, or to fight off encroaching invaders, and they pass on again in the night. A Jedi's work belongs to the galaxy, protecting the helpless and bringing light and care into dark places. They cannot lead armies into battle. They can ease suffering one heart at a time.

A quiet rumor follows them, speaking not of Jedi, but of mystic helpers who come into cities and villages and homes, bringing healing and hope.

They work as smugglers when necessary. They refuse to deal with spice, or slaves, or any number of horrifying freight they might carry. The Empire has embargoes on medicines, and on the free passage of people to better lives elsewhere. The little ship they acquired years ago smells of her candle smoke and of the soothing balm he uses for his arm each night, and it can carry those burdens lightly, often even without payment.

* * *

Fifteen years after the fall of the Order and the deaths of their friends, another rumor comes to them. A Jedi has been spotted in the Outer Rim, and the Empire is after him. The stories conflict one another. One says Kessel, another says Lothal, and the few that carry a name with them bear no name either of them has ever heard.

"There were more survivors," Mace says over the thin soup they're sharing for their supper tonight. "I know Obi-Wan made it safely off-world, as did Yoda."

"The rumors says this one is human. It's not Yoda." Her heart skips in a moment of hope. Could Obi-Wan have survived this long? Is he stepping forth into the brewing conflict to help? She misses him, more than most of her lost friends. She hasn't sensed him out amidst the stars. Caleb is still out there. He's happy these days, wherever he's gone. She's glad for that.

* * *

A different rumor and a series of mad coincidences bring them to a harsh desert world not far from Ryloth. They've debated going to Ryloth to help with the insurgency there. Mace was friends with the leader of the Resistance, long ago, and the Twi'leks could use the help now. They go over the risks and the benefits again and again. They can't pass unnoticed among Twi'leks. The presence of two Jedi will surely draw even more unwanted attention from the Empire. Mace's old friend may blame him for the Imperial presence on his world. But then again, he may see the value of two lightsabers in his cause. Years of hiding have taken their toll on them both. If one lone Jedi out there can stick out his neck for the Empire to find, could two members of the High Council dare do any less? The questions prod them, and Ryloth is tantalizingly close.

But first, Tatooine.

Depa hates it instantly, hates the sand scouring her flesh and the thick heat parching her lungs. "Let us conclude our business here quickly," she says, keeping her voice in a steady measure to avoid the childish whining note that wants to fill her words.

There's a cargo that needs to be moved, and they have the means to move it. Tatooine has more than its share of unsavory trade. They must be careful.

As they enter the dingy cantina, both freeze for a second on the stoop. Someone with the Force is close by. Friend, foe, or other, they cannot yet tell. Her lightsaber is in her deepest pocket. The new one he built is back on their ship, replaced with a blaster for the day.

"Watch yourself," she tells Mace.

"Do the same."

Their contact meets them at a booth inside, but it's difficult to give her their full attention while keeping an eye on the room. Depa excuses herself to get a fresh drink from the bar, and she sees him at last, standing there as though the last seventeen years were nothing.

She moves up next to him at the bar, puts down her credits, and in a voice loud enough for Obi-Wan to hear, she orders a Chalactan whiskey.

The light in his eyes as he turns to her is worth how wretched the whiskey tastes when she finally takes a sip several crowded minutes later.

* * *

His home is in the wastes. "When you live alone, and talk to yourself, people assume you're mad and leave you be." He wears the same humorous quirk to his mouth that Depa recalls from when they were far younger. This desert has wrinkled his skin and stolen the red from his hair, but nothing could erase the dry wit she knows and loves.

Mace asks, "How did Qui-Gon's spirit manage to return?" 

She cannot see him, but Depa senses his presence. Mace has been squinting at a shadowed corner of the room, wonder covering his tired features.

"It's a strange facet of the Force. I can teach you."

Depa hides her smile behind her tea. She remembers when Mace was the Grand Master of the Order and Obi-Wan still a rough padawan learning at the knee of Mace's mad old friend. Now Obi-Wan is the teacher, and they're all old. Streaks of white have peppered her own black hair these last several years, and each one reminds her of a friend who was not so fortunate.

When he reveals his reason for staying here, they are flabbergasted. Depa is doubly so, turning on Mace. "You never said Anakin betrayed you!"

"You didn't need to carry that burden with the rest."

"And you didn't need to carry it alone," she replies stubbornly. After all this time, Mace still tries to protect her, and she'd be more irritated if she didn't know she does the same for him.

They choose not to visit the boy, this unlikely child of Obi-Wan's fallen padawan. Best that Obi-Wan keeps his vigil at this distance, and that they don't awaken his gifts with their presence.

"I want to tell him, and I want never to tell him. Luke is so innocent now. I'm afraid of what he could become when he loses that innocence." Deep affection fills his every word of the boy, as much as if he'd raised him here in this lonely home himself.

"Come with us," Depa says, late into the night as they talk. "We are all stronger together."

"Stay," Obi-Wan counters. "It's been too long. I can't leave him here. I made a promise."

They can't stay, not forever. There are too many lives out there who need them. Obi-Wan may be doing the best he can for the galaxy here in his exile. They have no child to watch and guide. The child she ought to have taught is where she cannot find him, and he has grown to adulthood without her. Watching Luke from this great distance for a time is almost enough to make her feel a little better about Caleb. They'll stay for now. She's missed Obi-Wan too much to say good-bye yet.

He's sad under his smile, but his eyes have a merry twinkle when he says, "We aren't losing each other again." Obi-Wan hands her a small communicator. "We'll keep in contact."

* * *

For over a year, they do. No matter how far their travels take them, Depa has the small communicator with her, and speaks to her friend each day. She lives through his stories of Luke, and his own life on the outskirts of the minimum of civilization Tatooine has to offer. She shares their own adventures in repayment, the stories of the lives they touch. She tells him when she wakes gasping in sympathy pain from wherever Caleb is, her own eyes dry and burning, and he listens in shared sorrow.

It's good to have Obi-Wan back, even at this distance.

It hurts like losing him all over again when the communicator is shattered during a firefight. They're pinned in place for weeks, and have no means of sending a more mundane message to Ben Kenobi, care of the trading post in Anchorhead.

"We have to go back," she tells Mace. "He's going to think we were killed."

"We will." But by the time they can return to Tatooine together, they find only stories that mad old Ben Kenobi is long gone, and the homestead where Luke was raised is in ruins, and no one knows where either one has gone.

* * *

This war has kicked into high gear, and they can't stay uninvolved any longer. The Empire forged a massive space station that wiped out an entire planet, and the plucky little Rebellion destroyed it before the Imperials could obliterate another. The rumors say they have Jedi among their numbers, sometimes one or two, sometimes half a dozen. These are wild stories but they give her hope. No matter their true numbers, two more could make the difference.

They leave the little world in the wee hours of the night. They've brought in a shipment of vaccines under the blockade's nose, and stayed to teach this village the means of fighting back when the stormtroopers inevitably come to seize them. It has to be enough.

The Alliance has stayed alive by not being found. For six months, they follow stories and examine the outcomes of battles. Their break comes unexpectedly, when Mace is captured very briefly by an unscrupulous archaeologist who is ready to trade a contact name in exchange for his lightsaber. The fee is high. The reward is worth the price. Naturally, she tries to betray them anyway, but Depa still has her own lightsaber, and now they have a name.

The Death Star has been blown to atoms for over a year when they finally make their way to the Rebel base. New recruits flow in from time to time. Giving the assumed names they've been working under for the last several years, the pair of them are assumed to be among those eager for a fight. Luke is here, grown into the image of his father. He senses them as soon as they step into the room.

"Hi," he says with a confused uncertainty. "I know you, don't I?"

"We never met," Depa says. "We visited with Obi-Wan once."

His face breaks into a smile. "He'll be glad to see you. He's away on a mission now. I should be with him," he adds with a familiar self-deprecating annoyance she heard a hundred times from Anakin when he was young. She reads the same memory on Mace's face. "But he wanted some time to teach Ezra without the rest of us along." He sees the confusion on their faces. "Come on, I'll introduce you to the other Jedi here."

Luke leads them through the base and out to the hangar, giving them the tour peppered with friendly chatter and greetings to his various friends and colleagues. Depa wonders if Obi-Wan has told him the truth about his past. He radiates a sweet innocence that warms her heart, and fills her with wonder. Anakin always wrapped the edges of shadows around his presence, whispers of the Dark Side that his teachers tried to help him combat. Luke has none of these.

They make their way to a heavily-armed freighter. A feeling has been growing in her mind. Luke's enormous presence in the Force outshines everyone here, but there's a spark glowing even eclipsed as it has been by his light. No, she realizes as they near their destination. There are two.

The ship's landing ramp is lowered. A child, far too young to be here, runs past on unsteady legs with a high squealing laugh. A man chases him with exaggerated, playful steps, finally catching him and lifting him in his arms with a grin. "Gotcha." The boy giggles, enjoying what is clearly a favorite game between them.

The man turns to them, and Depa sees the pale scars over his eyes. Holding his son closer, he says, "Luke, you made some new friends?" He can't see them, can only sense that they are strong in the Force, even as his expression fills with a soft hope. He doesn't recognize the feeling he's having.

She does. After all this time, she still knows him.

"Hello, Caleb. I'm so sorry it took us so long to find you."

He freezes. Then his face alights with joy, and Depa is suddenly crushed into a hug with her padawan and a squirming, confused toddler. Her old master places his hand on her shoulder, and for one wonderful, long moment, she has never felt more alive.


End file.
